Alimentary products are usually prepared from flour, such as semolina, durum or other hard wheat, and water, which are metered in proper proportions and mixed until the wheat absorbs the water, forming a viscous pasta dough. Other ingredients, such as whole eggs or egg whites, are often added to enhance cooking quality. The dough is then extruded or otherwise formed to produce a shaped pasta product, such as spaghetti or cut pasta. The resulting product has a predetermined size, shape, and weight.
After extrusion, the fresh pasta product, commonly referred to in the industry as "green" pasta, may be dried and packaged for later preparation by the consumer However, dried pasta is not as flavorful as fresh pasta, and the pasta is more preferably prepared without ever passing through a costly drying operation. Instead of drying, the green pasta may be cooked by blanching in boiling water for about 12 minutes, and then rinsing to remove a sticky, gelatinized starch from the cooked pasta surfaces A flavor liquor, containing flavor-enhancing ingredients such as salt or parsley flakes, may be disbursed into the pasta, which is treated with a light coating of oil to prevent excessive agglutination with resultant product loss. The precooked pasta is then packaged for later use by the consumer.
Fresh cooked pasta is generally prepared by extruding en masse through a short-cut head or round dye of a mixer-extruder. For spaghetti, the dye is usually 20 inches in diameter and is provided with a knife that continuously cuts the pasta when it reaches a proper length. The cut pasta falls on a conveyor belt in a continuous stream and is sent through a continuous blancher which is a large tube-like vessel through which hot water and green pasta are constantly circulated. An archimedes screw is submerged half-way in the boiling water, to carry the pasta through the blancher. During this process, some of the resulting starch-laden waste water is drawn off and replaced with fresh water. Although the spaghetti has been precut, it is delivered from the continuous blancher in a continuous stream, often accumulating in large tangled masses.
The tangled pasta mass is loaded into large transfer tubs which are then charged with small amounts of flavored liquor. The tubs are placed into tumblers which utilize tumbling action to distribute the flavored liquor through the pasta. The tubs are then charged with oil and additional ingredients, such as parsley flakes, if desired, and placed in another set of tumblers. Finally, the mass of pasta is discharged from the tubs, into a pile for manual proportioning, i.e. separation, weighing and packaging in meal-sized portions of a predetermined weight.
This method and related apparatus suffer from a number of serious disadvantages. For example, the pasta cooking time will vary with the residence time in the blancher. While essentially continuous, cooking in a mass presents the opportunity for some pasta to be swept rapidly through to the discharge screw while some pasta continues to recirculate, producing undercooked or overcooked pasta. In addition, each pasta strand may encounter a varied degree of agitation, depending on entanglements and the degree of fluid agitation. The water temperature in a large blancher may also produce gradients which affect the degree of cooking. All these factors can detrimentally impact flavor.
The dispensing and packaging stages are also labor intensive and very inefficient, requiring transfer of the pasta through a series of vessels, sometimes by hand. For packaging, the precooked product is delivered in tubs containing hot, oily and sticky masses of tangled pasta. The pasta must be weighed and measured in predetermined portions of about 60 to 100 grams and placed in a small dispensing container, from which it is transferred to a packing container, most often a plastic pouch. The difficult process of removing the product from the tub, weighing it, and packaging is usually done by hand on a turntable, in assembly line fashion, which may involve about 45 handlers on three lines for each of two shifts. The weighing process is particularly slow, and averages about 4 portions per person per minute, whereas packaging averages about 165 pouches per minute.
Throughout the entire process, the pasta is handled by both man and machine, resulting in substantial product loss through damage, waste, etc. In addition, quality is negatively impacted due to the time required to both cook and proportion the pasta. The longer it sits, the less appetizing the pasta becomes. The pasta can also degrade and/or become tainted due to bacterial growth or due to foreign matter dropping into the pasta.
One device for cooking pasta is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,634,332 to McGowan, which describes a canning machine for preparing spaghetti dinners. Dry spaghetti is dosed into conventional cans in predetermined portions. Water, sauce and other ingredients, such as meatballs, are added, each can is sealed, and the can sterilized in a pressurized retort or autoclave-type chamber, which simultaneously cooks the contents of the can.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,214,514 to Cortino et al., a cooker for foodstuffs is disclosed which includes a plurality of perforated pots movable vertically in a tank between a raised position and a lowered position The foodstuff is manually proportioned and placed in the pot when in the raised position and then lowered, with boiling water injected into the pot to cook the foodstuff while stirring to prevent sticking. After a preset time interval, the pot is returned to its raised position for manual discharge of the cooked foodstuff. Such a system is designed for restaurant use to provide individually cooked meals, ready to serve. U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,503 to Moore similarly discloses a raise/lower cooker.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,977,902 to Johannes, a perforated basket immersion system is described. A spaghetti pasta is extruded, cut and dropped into perforated baskets, with the pasta undergoing a series of transfers between processing operations. The apparatus uses reservoirs with step conveyors for shaking the pasta containing baskets as they move through the cooking and rinsing reservoir troughs. Such equipment is quite complex, costly and difficult to maintain, with the mechanical shaking providing the potential for product breakage.
Consequently, what is needed in the art is an automated proportioning system which provides individual portions of pasta for packaging in minimum time and with minimum complexity. Such a system should also provide precise temperature and time control to assure uniform processing for optimum quality with a minimum of machine or manual handling.